1. See for the move to this studio in Nuenen: letters 500 and 501.

a. Means: ‘niets’ (nothing).

2. The physician Hubertus Amadeus Cavenaille, who had his surgery at 2 rue de Hollande in Antwerp. His name is noted in one of Van Gogh’s sketchbooks. See Tralbaut 1948, pp. 69-70; Wilkie 1978, pp. 154-168; Van der Wolk 1987, p. 104. According to Cavenaille’s descendants, Van Gogh gave him two painted portraits, which are not known, in payment for his medical services. See Ken Wilkie, The Van Gogh file. The myth and the man. Rev. ed. London 2004, pp. 226-227 (with a portrait photograph of Cavenaille).

3. See for these ‘drawing clubs’ letter 555, n. 1.

4. Some thirty artists, among them several foreigners, worked at Cormon’s well-known studio. See Destremau 1997, and letter 557, n. 1.

5. Cf. Eccl. 9:10, ‘whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.’

6. This could mean either ‘hard’ or ‘expensive’ times.

b. Means: ‘beschadigd, gehavend’ (damaged, battered).

7. Adriaan Rijken, about whom Mr van Gogh had written to Theo on 30 December 1884: ‘Rijken is still our workman and perfectly fit again. These people are flourishing and the children are doing so well too. I am so pleased’ (FR b2264). Rijken was present at the reading of the inventory after Mr van Gogh’s death; on the list of funeral expenses there is an entry of 1 guilder for ‘Rijken workman’ (FR b2918, RHC, De Brouwer 1984, p. 23, and exhib. cat. ’s-Hertogenbosch 1987, pp. 87, 89).

His son Cornelis Rijken, then aged 14, evidently also worked for the Van Goghs. Cornelis’s son S.A. Rijken wrote about it in a letter of 4 February 1963: ‘At the house of my grandfather A. Rijken, who lived at the time in Beekstraat Nuenen behind the parsonage, there were a couple of looms at the time, drawn and painted by Vincent many times ... His son, my father C. Rijken, was the garden boy at that time and looked after Dr v Gogh’s garden, and also kept the studio clean. As I heard him tell many times, also that he several times pushed the barrow to Nuenen station to take paintings to the train etc.’ (Letter Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Archives Vincent van Gogh Foundation).